It has less to do with changing our habits than it does with 'begin reproduction controls'.

I love how people want us to go back to the earth, stop with all the modern food production, and so on, but they never tell you which 2 billion people they want to sacrifice to do so.

Going forward, we need to be able to improve both the farming methods, and our understanding of how the plants work. If for no other reason than that we'll need to be able to make specialized plants for colonization (both orbital facilities and eventually Mars).

This is a major step forward, and bacteria are VERY good at finding the most efficient method of making something.

It has less to do with changing our habits than it does with 'begin reproduction controls'.

I love how people want us to go back to the earth, stop with all the modern food production, and so on, but they never tell you which 2 billion people they want to sacrifice to do so.

Going forward, we need to be able to improve both the farming methods, and our understanding of how the plants work. If for no other reason than that we'll need to be able to make specialized plants for colonization (both orbital facilities and eventually Mars).

This is a major step forward, and bacteria are VERY good at finding the most efficient method of making something.

Hypothetically we could reduce hugely the carbon footprint needed to make a similar amount of food and so still feed the world population. We'd just probably have less variety of food products available in any given location.

Couldn't liberals just walk around in white robes with large signs that all said "The End Is NEAR!" At this point, the whole Chicken Little thing is getting to be pretty old hat.

Right on! Tell 'em. Who the hell needs drought-resistant plants anyway? I mean, what would any drought wracked country in Africa or the Middle East stand to benefit? What about 'Murica? Conspiricy says California (who produces a metric tonne of our crops) has a water shortage. Fake news! Bad years in the corn belt ain't a thing either.

I wonder, would this enzyme potentially be usable to do something about carbonate ions in water as well? i.e. could an engineered bacteria using this potentially help counteract ocean acidication?

It's not the carbonate ions themselves (you need them for shellfish, and when sourced from mineral bedrock they actually make the oceans less acidic). It's the dissolved CO2 at the other end you need to knock down to slow or reverse ocean acidification. So yes, in principle this could be used to help in the process.

I wonder, would this enzyme potentially be usable to do something about carbonate ions in water as well? i.e. could an engineered bacteria using this potentially help counteract ocean acidication?

Theoretically yes, the same process should be possible with "kelp RuBisCo" or some other water plant. But the immediate goal seems to be to create crops with increased carbon capture efficiency. I'm not sure crop kelp production is enough to warrant this or enough to make a dent in ocean acidification.

It's not the carbonate ions themselves (you need them for shellfish, and when sourced from mineral bedrock they actually make the oceans less acidic). It's the dissolved CO2 at the other end you need to knock down to slow or reverse ocean acidification. So yes, in principle this could be used to help in the process.

It's been quite a few years since my chemistry classes, but I was under the impression that what occurs in the process of acidification is pretty much the excess CO2 dissolving into the water and forming carbonic acid in the process, which, given that it's still in water would dissociate into 2 H+ and CO3 2- (aka carbonate). Am I wrong? I wasn't suggesting eliminating it entirely, merely using this to help remove some of the excess that's already there.

Why not both? We've got a huge deficit to make up for at this point, and even if we stopped all carbon production today it would take a very long time for nature to return the balance. Working out sequestration technologies today could help greatly speed the process along in the future.

Somehow, I think the law of unintended consequences may have something to say on this matter.

If it's so ubiquitous and it's been around for so long, something's bound to break in the larger ecological system if you mess with this enzyme. It's one thing to try to make an apple sweeter or bigger or whatever. But this just seems like something you shouldn't mess with...

Pretty interesting science, however, I'm a bit baffled why the subheadline says "Could boost our ability to get plants to help us control carbon emissions." For one, where is it established in the article that we need help to control carbon emissions. This seems strange to put out a solution as fact when the problem hasnt even been proven. It's not credible to inject a theory like that into this science, even if this were a potential application. This is rather presumptuous journalism and ask why it is this way that a biogenetics article needs a politically charged pet theory on climate attached to it's headline other than for a thinly veiled political agenda to program the public.

That should hardly be shocking. Remaking the environment to suit us whenever possible is kind of our defining characteristic.

Correct. I find it amusing how some people stay up at night worrying about whether the chicken they just ate was given an opportunity to scratch at the ground thus exhibiting its natural behaviors. However, that same person is horrified when they see humans express their natural behaviors- eating meat, designing new crops, replacing natural habitat with human habitat.

They worry that if an advanced alien came here they would be disgusted with us. Not at all, such an alien would see nothing but an intriguing web of different species all doing what they naturally do. It would be obvious to them that humans are simply animals, and have every right to express their natural behavior.

Also, pretty sure I ignored them a long time ago. Didn't know they were still around posting useless everything. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess...good to see that ignoring has its benefits, though!

Somehow, I think the law of unintended consequences may have something to say on this matter.

If it's so ubiquitous and it's been around for so long, something's bound to break in the larger ecological system if you mess with this enzyme. It's one thing to try to make an apple sweeter or bigger or whatever. But this just seems like something you shouldn't mess with...

Large numbers of plants get around the photorespiration problem of Rubisco by utilising a C4 carbon fixation pathway, effectively concentrating CO2 within leaf bundle sheath cells, to outcompete oxygen binding.

The C4 pathway has an energetic (ATP + NADPH) cost to the plant, but is common in tropical species (photorespiration is more favourable at higher temperatures). Although biochemically complex, C4-type mechanisms have evolved dozens of times in nature, and some species utilise an intermediate C3/C4 mechanism to lessen the Rubisco problem. Most famously, rice is an (inefficient) C3 plant. Many millions of dollars have been invested trying to convert it to C4.

It's not the carbonate ions themselves (you need them for shellfish, and when sourced from mineral bedrock they actually make the oceans less acidic). It's the dissolved CO2 at the other end you need to knock down to slow or reverse ocean acidification. So yes, in principle this could be used to help in the process.

It's been quite a few years since my chemistry classes, but I was under the impression that what occurs in the process of acidification is pretty much the excess CO2 dissolving into the water and forming carbonic acid in the process, which, given that it's still in water would dissociate into 2 H+ and CO3 2- (aka carbonate). Am I wrong? I wasn't suggesting eliminating it entirely, merely using this to help remove some of the excess that's already there.

You have to consider Le Chatelier's principle here. This is a multi-step reaction where removing carbonate will only drive carbonic acid to dissociate until equilibrium is re-established. Your main options to reduce ocean acidity are to either remove the CO2 as is or push the forward reaction until you run out of reactants. There are others I could mention, but they are far more convoluted.

Somehow, I think the law of unintended consequences may have something to say on this matter.

If it's so ubiquitous and it's been around for so long, something's bound to break in the larger ecological system if you mess with this enzyme. It's one thing to try to make an apple sweeter or bigger or whatever. But this just seems like something you shouldn't mess with...

In that case, we will simply engineer more efficient herbivores (and carnivores to take care of the herbivores). Let's upgrade the whole food chain. /s

It's not the carbonate ions themselves (you need them for shellfish, and when sourced from mineral bedrock they actually make the oceans less acidic). It's the dissolved CO2 at the other end you need to knock down to slow or reverse ocean acidification. So yes, in principle this could be used to help in the process.

It's been quite a few years since my chemistry classes, but I was under the impression that what occurs in the process of acidification is pretty much the excess CO2 dissolving into the water and forming carbonic acid in the process, which, given that it's still in water would dissociate into 2 H+ and CO3 2- (aka carbonate). Am I wrong? I wasn't suggesting eliminating it entirely, merely using this to help remove some of the excess that's already there.

You have to consider Le Chatelier's principle here. This is a multi-step reaction where removing carbonate will only drive carbonic acid to dissociate until equilibrium is re-established. Your main options to reduce ocean acidity are to either remove the CO2 as is or push the forward reaction until you run out of reactants. There are others I could mention, but they are far more convoluted.

This. Basically, the more CO2 in, the more bicarbonate (HCO3-) and acid (H+), meaning the mineral carbonate forms that you need become more soluble, giving you more bicarbonate. If it was just the mineral form slightly dissolving without the coupled effect of the CO2, the pH would actually increase (not decrease). Keep shoving in CO2, and the equilibrium concentrations shift to restore equilibrium, but those concentrations favour the wrong form of carbonate.

Exactly what does the "improved" efficiency here mean? I guess it must mean that it will take fewer photons to bind a given amount of CO2 into sugars. So the amount of plant material produced per acre per year will go up.

That will be good for feeding more people.

If the goal is to increase the amount of CO2 permanently removed from the atmosphere, then it means growing forests faster, or with increased density, or in places where they can't currently grow. And then ensuring that the all that wood is kept as wood and not burned. Or perhaps it can decrease the land area devoted to crops and allow increasing land area devoted to solar power generation.

Why stop at plants? Maybe we will get a Shadowrun-ish future with a mix of regular humans and green-skinned ones. Modern society's current awful taste in clothing/hairdo is telling me that we're halfway there anyway.

Exactly what does the "improved" efficiency here mean? I guess it must mean that it will take fewer photons to bind a given amount of CO2 into sugars. So the amount of plant material produced per acre per year will go up.

That will be good for feeding more people.

If the goal is to increase the amount of CO2 permanently removed from the atmosphere, then it means growing forests faster, or with increased density, or in places where they can't currently grow. And then ensuring that the all that wood is kept as wood and not burned. Or perhaps it can decrease the land area devoted to crops and allow increasing land area devoted to solar power generation.

I wonder how much of a potential disaster it would be to engineer plants with the opposite chirality on their sugars so they can't be broken down by microorganisms properly? It would be a mess if they escaped into the wild though. That way you could just stack all of the dead plant material on the spot and not have to spend the energy to bury it. Maybe do it out on some remote island somewhere to reduce the risk of contamination?

Exactly what does the "improved" efficiency here mean? I guess it must mean that it will take fewer photons to bind a given amount of CO2 into sugars. So the amount of plant material produced per acre per year will go up.

Effectively yes.

The photorespiratory activity of Rubisco creates phosphoglycolate, which has to be converted back into phosphoglycerate before it can re-enter the Calvin-Benson cycle. This is energetically wasteful for the plant, and also produces hydrogen peroxide, which needs to be detoxified.